This statuette is a good example of a well-known subject, the servant waiting to escort his master home. A Hellenistic terracotta statuette from the Fayum, Egypt provides the earliest known evidence for this type. The subject was popular in Roman times, when marble examples served as fountain sculptures in villa gardens in Pompeii and Syria, and bronze and silver variations were made into luxurious household objects such as inkwells and pepper-castors.